Radio answers from Oliver Wrede

Answers to Marc on Radio etc. from Oliver Wrede in Germany

• QUESTIONS to get answers for
  • On RADIO
    • Radio's OPML SHARED OUTLINES
      • Is there an ICQ like function that tells who is on line in the community?
        • There is something currently in development, that is nearly in production status:
        • Jabber Tool for RU
        • Dave Winer: RPC over Instant Messaging
        • I don't think someone implemented the ICQ transport yet. I know ICQ in partcular allows the get the online-status via HTTP. We have an intranet page that shows who's online. Radio/Frontier could use these as well.
      • How do they add the status? Are they just typing it in or is it aware of their status?
        • Just typing in.
      • How do I get the little faces and other icons on the outline?
        • Each node can have a nodeType. That is defined as a type attribute in the OPML format (see right-click menu: Debug).
        • You can't just edit the type there I think. There is not "x-ray" mode to edit the meta information of a node.
        • This information usually is set with UserTalk.
        • Corresponding to a nodetype there is a table describing that node (e.g. what should happen if it's duble-clicked). There is also information about the Icon graphic. You can have own - they are stored as binary data in that table. There is a list of custom nodetypes here user.tools.nodeTypes. I think there is another one maintained by Userland somewhere....
      • Can you develop the capability for each user to publish multiple OPML threads with category names so that people can subscribe only to the outline of interest to them?
        • Difficult to understand - I don't know what an "OPML thread" is or might be technically.
      • Can it be such that folks who don't own Radio can view the outlines and have most of the functions of the outliner available through their web browser?
        • For just browsing: Yes. There is someone who did a "activeRenderer" that does this.
        • http://radio.weblogs.com/0104487/outlines/activeRenderer.html
      • Can I put anything other than text and URLs in the outline? (When everyone has a web server on their desktop, then it will not matter since URLs will point to everything then.)
        • The Radio Outliner does only show Links, Bold and Italic inline. But you can have any kind of node that you interact with by double-clicking or right-clicking.
      • Can I use outline formatting tools from RadioUserland?
        • Don't get the question. Using for what?
      • How can you force an update of your outline to the community server?
        • There is probably a script doing the check that just has to be identified and called. It is called by the sheduler now. Someone could create a tool that defined a menu command (or "inside-outline-button) that calls that script.
      • Can a server using a purchased version of Userland with Manila use this new Buddy system for outlines?
        • The buddy system is independent from Manila. These two have nothing in common. I am not really sure how the Buddy-system works now - I guess the users RU copy does sheduled checks for changes by retrieving a file on a remote location/URL - currently a fixed one at weblogs.com I think.
        • Each time I update my instant outline weblogs.com is notified - even though my instant outline resides on an own server (that does also run Manila BTW).
      • Can we get a search engine that searches a BUDDY's outline--even the browsers "find" would be helpful?
        • It would be easy I think to crawl instant outlines and to index them with the Frontier build in search engine.
        • Problem is how to decide what is an instant outline and what is a standard OPML document that was linked by someone in his instant outline.
      • Can you add the clone function that MORE had so that one can have linked/synchronous copies of the same outline anywhere? If this was done could the clone be put into web sites? If a clone was included in a Manila site would it be susceptible to rendering with an outline render function. Could it be actively linked to some master outline by choice (or made static by choice by either party, the author or the site using the clone?
        • I don't know that clone function. There is no aliases of nodes built in the outliner as such. Browsing an outline also is a different mode than editiing.
        • Evectors is working on a Tool called "Shared outlines" that allows group editing of a virtually single outline.
        • http://paolo.evectors.it/stories/sharedOutline.html
    • General Radio Functions
      • Couldn't someone write up-to-date user manuals and keep them current and on line?
        • Hehe.
      • What is the difference in the server provided with Radio for $39 and RadioUserland for $900?
        • Manila. mainResponder. Potentially some internal stuff (threading) that is relevant for servers that need to answer many requests. But that I am not sure.
      • Can we get a spell checker in RadioUserland?
        • Dave Winer talked about this recently. Potentially will be a feature some day.
      • How can I have synchronized versions of Radio running on my work PC and my home Mac? Paying the $39 twice is not a problem.
        • There is no synching-feature yet. Also no "downstreaming". I think it would be possible to implement downstreaming, so that the server copy is always the most accurate (and a client could get the newer items).
        • Not easy to do.
  • On FRONTIER USERLAND & MANILA
    • Can I upstream or FTP from a OSX FrontierUserland server to a PC FrontierUserland server?
      • You can remote copy tables via XML-RPC. There is a way to directly translate Frontier tables to an XML expression and transfer that to another Frontier copy.
      • See here: http://frontier.userland.com/stories/storyReader$82
    • What would I need to do to become very proficient at using RadioUserland and Manila?
      • No easy answer to that one.
      • Read this for a start: http://owrede.khm.de/dev/goldenrules
      • To understand Manila and be able to extend it, it really helps to understand the website framework.
        • The website framework is the collection of scripts that rendered an HTML page - the standard way of rendering a page so to say.
        • It was developed to render static pages from a Frontier GDB subtable - and it is still used in the StaticSite tool!
      • The mainResponder is a dynamic wrap around the website framework.
        • It handles the Web serving issues that are irrelevant for just static rendering pages: auhtentification, redirecting, etc.
      • Manila is based on mainResponder/website framework of Frontier.
        • The way objects are rendered are completely the same. But: Manila does not store content as hierarchical objects (so the GDB structure corresponds to the URL tree of your site). In Manila there are some predefined objects, that correspond to URLs.
        • When a user requests an URL that does not have a corresponding object in the sites table, then a "objectNotFound" handler kicks in and tries do look up something in the site structure XML document.
        • In other words: The website framework refers to _physical objects_ in the GDB. Manila uses it as well, but has a way to respond with "virtual" objects/content.
      • Radio Userland is a different beast based on similar principles.
        • The concept - as far as I can tell - in Radio is to have the "physical objects" not to reside in a GDB, but rather in the www-Folder of your Radio installation directory. The principles are the same, but users can edit objects with - for instance - BBEdit.
        • There is a kind of mainResponder that handles the HTTP serving in Radio to the local user (but it is not located in mainResponder.root anymoer and may also be much simpler)
        • The rendering of the final pages (those who get "upstreamed" to the RCS server) works similar to the website framework.

Last update: 5/12/2002; 1:23:10 AM.